It’s all about finding a way to capture that “je ne sais quoi” that makes someone unique, and showing it off only through imagery. It’s a complicated task that requires the combination of lots of techniques. Design style, facial and body expressions, color, clothing – a lot of factors to consider.

It’s something that these 99designs users have gotten right. Each character has it’s own style and personality – each is unique and definitely functional.

The All-American Indian Girl by m.sc is a great example of design problem-solving. The design is simple, clean and bright with the perfect sparkle in her eye and upraised eyebrow to indicate the feisty character the CH wanted.

The CH also specifically requests a white background for this image and m.sc delivers it in a fantastic creative way, blending the character’s dress into the background so that they can cleanly depict only the top half of her body, helping place more attention on her face.

Designer dorarpolhendra finds a way to bring fun to a pediatric dental illustration with his superhero version of the Cavity Cops. Friendly faces and bold colors appeal to the young audience this dentist wants to target – kids.

And it’s all about the details: check out their tooth-belts and toothbrush tools, there’s no doubt that these superheros will bring fun to taking care of teeth.

The CH from Turned on Digital was looking for line-drawn illustrations of the company’s employees. In her simple and sophisticated winning design,Bashango captures the perfect balance between hand-drawn and graphically polished.

He gives each person their own unique look but keeps them similar enough to be consistent, so they look great as a group.

Estefanía Sanz had the task of creating “Vivi,” a cute and bubbly videohost targeted towards women. With a hint of vintage TV classic Bewitched, the designer captures the character’s feminine charm by using bright colors and a nostalgic design style.

Do you have other favorite character designs? Please share.

The author

Kaitlyn is part of the Community Team at 99designs.com. She grew up in Boulder, CO and went to school at Northwestern University in Chicago. When she's not blogging, she spends her time having adventures and being generally creative. She's all about having new experiences as often as possible!